IG Farben

[jbor]

----------
>From: MalignD at aol.com
>

> Re IG Farben, specifically--as to its history, GR's references are almost
> entirely cribbed. GR is correct exactly to the extent that its (in most
> instances) single source is correct, incorrect in the same degree.


I haven't read or even been able to locate a copy of Sasuly's book so I
can't really comment on how much Pynchon might or might not have "cribbed"
from there. But there is some info. on Sasuly and his book here, as well as
part of the preface to it written by Senator Claude Pepper (?!):

http://www.ftrbooks.com/psych/drug_industry/ig_farben.htm
A possible source I have been able to locate is the following:

Josiah E DuBois, Jr. _The Devil's Chemists: 24 Conspirators of the
International Farben Cartel Who Manufacture Wars_, The Beacon Press: Boston
1952.

Dubois says he wrote his book by condensing "150 large volumes of
testimony", and from a quick scan it appears that he was present at the
trials of the Farben directors.

The first chapter of Part One ('Totalitarian Industry -- Threat to World
Peace?') opens as follows:

    [ ... ] I.G. Farben first subdued nature in ten thousand ways, then
    shipped the marvelous products of that victory across the seven seas.
    Its business has touched the life of every man and woman in the world.
    Often an unrecognized guest, it has visited every American home, with
    dyes, plastics, fabrics. If Farben did not make your bathroom fixtures,
    your shaving mug, or even your razor, your wife surely owes much of her
    prettification -- from Easter hat to synthetic stockings -- to I.G.
    Farben.

    [ ... ]

        But the founders were not merely concerned with balance sheets. They
    drew their inspiration from the gurgling of water, the perfume of damp
    earth, and every vegetable and mineral in the earth. Could health,
    personal beauty -- yes, even universal brotherhood -- be created by two
    dozen men of dynamic chemical genius? They believed it could. [ ... ]

        Dyes were the basis of American I.G. Chemical's entire business,
    just as dyes were the financial and scientific wellspring of all Farben
    companies. [ ... ]

Dubois details the foundation in the late 20s of "the old American I.G.
Chemical Corporation" -- legal ownership of which the Farben "president"
transferred to a "friend in Switzerland", sometime late in the next decade I
guess -- its U.S. subsidiary companies and affiliates, the formation of
'Chemnyco' as an intermediary patenting corporation, how Edsel Ford and the
presidents of Standard Oil and the National City Bank of New York were on
American I.G.'s board through the 30s, the govt. investigations and money
trails etc.

Just skimming through the book I found the following description of one of
the I.G. Farben scientists at the trial:

    One of the cross-eyed men rose in the dock ... he made his way across
    the well of the court, his feet toed out slightly, and this -- with his
    erect posture -- made you wonder whether he had ever been in the Army.
    But no -- though his stride was even there was no pace or music in it.
    If he had been announced as a minister of the gospel, you would believe
    it even before hearing the coincidence of his name -- Christian
    Schneider. His glasses were clerically rimless. His large, blue crossed
    eyes sought the heavens, a hint perhaps that you look elsewhere. ...
                                (Part 5 'Masters and Slaves', p. 160)

Schneider was involved with the production of "Leuna" Gasoline and, in the
20s, had worked to adapt the Bergius coal-liquification procedure to a large
scale process of "hydrogenation" which meant "the pressuring of coal, tars,
and mineral oils by stages, into their final products". What struck me most
was the description: the glasses, the blue eyes (not "myopic" but cross),
the heavenward-vision of the man, "a hint that you look elsewhere." It
sounded mighty familiar.

There are lots of excerpts from the court transcripts, and it's quite a
lively little tale Dubois tells. But I would also be interested to read
exactly what it is that Pynchon is supposed to have copied nearly verbatim
from Sasuly's book.

best